First Look: Malekith on the Set of Thor: The Dark World

To read more about Malekith, click here: THOR: THE DARK WORLD Villain is Malekith The Accursed

Tom Hiddleston (Loki) on pressure of doing a sequel following The Avengers:

“It’s mostly self-applied pressure actually. I remember Chris [Hemsworth] and I saying over the summer when Avengers came out, where do we go now? Going into this one we were – very flatteringly – involved in big creative conversations about tone, and story. Thor and Loki are these two characters that people know and love and understand – so we have to take this in the right direction. You want to do something new – you don’t want to re-heat the same recipe in the microwave, you want to cook up something different and exciting – but you don’t want to lose the things that worked the first time. So we’re our own slave drivers, in a way. Complacency is the enemy. But that’s exciting and it’s going well. I have never seen a group of actors or a crew work harder.”

On Loki getting smashed by the Hulk:

“Yeah! [laughs]  He’s certainly eaten humble pie. The springboard for us in the second Thor film is at the end of Avengers you see Thor and Loki beamed up back to Asgard. The first question that we all asked was ‘what happens next? What does Odin have to say about the events of Avengers?’ ‘What’s Jane Foster been up to while she wasn’t involved?’ It’s really exciting, actually. We’re literally half way through – we started at the start of August and we should be finished by Christmas. It’s going beautifully.”

Guillermo del Toro on the Hulk TV Series

“Right now all I know is the official word I was given is that there’s a writer they want,” says del Toro. “They are very interested in me meeting with him. He’s very, very busy. The official word is we are holding, but I don’t know… After ‘Avengers’ having the success it had, perhaps the fate of the project may change. Right now officially what I know – and I’m not hiding anything off the record or anything – is that we were told we were waiting for this writer, and we were going to do it with him.”

I have heard about this Hulk tv series for a while now but I am not sure why they would develop a tv show instead of a movie.  The Hulk stole the show in the Avengers and is one of the most popular characters in the Marvel Universe.  Not to mention a tv series would be pretty expensive to produce.  Also, would it be separate from the Hulk in the first movie and the Avengers or would it be following the same version?  I hope they drop this idea and proceed with the Hulk 2 instead.

The Avengers

With the release of The Avengers on DVD/Blu-ray this week, I have decided to review the summer blockbuster.  The basic plot revolves around Loki, the brother of Thor, working for a mysterious alien and leading an army to earth so he can rule.  To counter this attack, a secret Government organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. assembles the earth’s mightiest heroes.  Pretty much everyone loves this movie and I like it as well.  It’s a big, fun, summer popcorn flick and there is nothing wrong with that.

Marvel has taken years to build up to this film by making movies about the individual characters first.  This was a very wise plan.  Team movies with big casts tend to have the problem of trying to develop all of their characters in a 2-2.5 hour time span.  By having one or more individual movies come out first, everyone is already familiar with all of the characters in the movie.  This allows them to move straight into the action.

The only real complaint I have about The Avengers is that I didn’t care for the Governments technology very much.  Besides Iron Man, who is supposed to be way ahead of his time, the technology that had been shown in the previous films was basically what we have in real life.  But S.H.I.E.L.D.  has flying air craft carriers and all sorts of crazy gadgets, it just felt like watching a G.I. Joe cartoon from the 1980s.  This isn’t a big deal, I haven’t even heard anyone else mention it, so it’s probably just me.

Each of our heroes gets plenty of screen time and fight scenes.  For the first half of the movie they are fighting each other more than the bad guys.  Once they finally all come together and face off against the alien force at the end, it’s nothing but a huge free for all.  I never really felt like the world was in danger from this threat but New York was.  Apparently you shouldn’t live in New York because it’s always under attack by super villains in the movies!

It’s during the last third of the movie that the Hulk really steals the show.  Everyone loved this character and his use as comic relief.  It surprises me that Marvel hasn’t already put the Hulk 2 into production.  Perhaps they will soon.  After the credits we get a hint at who the bad guy in the next one will be, and he is a big one.  For people who don’t follow the comic books and were wondering who “the purple guy” was, his name is Thanos and he is a major threat to anyone.  Thanos is a guy who can beat even powerful beings like Thor or the Silver Surfer in a one on one fight.

Like I said before, The Avengers is a big, fun, popcorn flick and there is nothing wrong with that.  I give it 3 out of 4 stars.